Archive for January 2011

In the local news stakes, you can’t beat a good flasher. And if you can’t beat them, join them… RIGHT LADS?

SINGER-FROM -THE-BAND-KEANE FLASHER:

Yorkshire Evening Post, 7 January 2011:

Hunt for Harrogate flasher

Dectectives hunting a pervert believed to have repeatedly exposed himself to women in Harrogate have issued an e-fit picture of a suspect.

The “flasher”, who seems to strike after sunset, is believed to have exposed himself on at least three occasions in the Stray Rein area of the town in the last month.

On Saturday December 18, two women were walking along a public footpath connecting York Place with Tewit Well Road at about 5.45pm when they saw a man standing by a tree, just past a nearby railway bridge.

The man was naked and had his jeans around his ankles. He was described as white, in his early to mid 20s and about 6ft 3in tall, of larger than average build with dark brown hair worn in a pudding-bowl shape.

He had a round face with a pale complexion and dark eyes. His upper body appeared to be hairless.

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This is a very sad episode in the life of Middlesbrough’s Evening Gazette.

It’s all very well that local newspapers publish classified adverts so the locals can wheel and deal in household appliances and the like, but when such adverts become the story it’s a different matter, and surely the lowest form of regional media coverage.

A DIE-HARD Angelina Jolie fan is parting company with his beloved Lara Croft life-sized cut-out after his wife took a disliking to her.

Michael Coleman has decided to go his separate ways from the imitation Tomb Raider heroine after nine happy years together.

Michael said: “Angelina used to get quite a bit of attention from my mates. They used to think she was mint but Julie didn’t like her.”

But the couple are now planning a move to the Stevenage area, where Julie’s brother lives, and Michael has decided it’s time to say goodbye to Angelina.

Michael, of Evesham Way, Billingham, said: “Apart from my wife, Angelina is the perfect woman. I want her to go to a good home.” The unemployed kitchen and bathroom fitter, who recently qualified after completing a college course, has put the figure, his “pride and joy”, up for sale.

Is it a requirement of being a qualified kitchen and bathroom fitter that you wear a jumper which advertises your tiling skills?

ONE of the world’s most beautiful Hollywood stars has been snubbed by Teessiders.

Despite attracting a flurry of attention on the Gazette’s website after featuring in our paper, few prospective buyers put their money where their mouth was to bid for the beauty. Disappointed by the reaction, Michael, 35, and his wife Julie, of Evesham Way, have now decided she can stay put.

The unemployed kitchen and bathroom fitter said: “I thought she would have been in popular demand but we did not really get that many offers.

“She folds in half and she is on top of the wardrobe. I don’t know if we will have her on display again, if we get a games room maybe.”

The mum of seven, whose children range in age from 13 to 25, said: “When we got burgled it put the wind up me seeing her there.”

But she said: “I’m quite happy to keep hold of her. In a few years she could be worth a bit more and we can pass her down through the family.”

Julie said her grandaughter Kelsie Willans, three, even has a look of the star. She said: “The cut-out might even go to Kelsie. She will probably look like her because she is gorgeous. She has the same lips.”

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Newspaper billboards are devised to attract the attention of passers-by and make them part with cash for a newspaper they might not otherwise have bought. Often, the billboards are better than the papers themselves. Just you try resisting any of these.

Brighton Argus:

That’s no way to talk about the police.

Whitby Gazette:

A bridge club for swingers, surely. How else could it be newsworthy?

Middlesbrough Evening Gazette:

For those not in the know, a Parmo is a cult local delicacy on Teesside. Basically a heart attack in a box and, apparently, best eaten at gunpoint.

POLICE are hunting a hooded man in his 50s who is targeting charity shops with stink bombs.

The man – in his 50s – repeatedly preys on the Cancer Research shop in Hall Place and the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire Air Ambulance shop in Sheepmarket.

The stink bombs smell like rotten eggs and the stench is so powerful that customers arriving at the shops are opening the door and going away again.

Lisa Winkley, manager of the Cancer Research shop, said the stink bombs are usually let off amongst the books on the ground floor.

Staff have to throw books away and the foul smell fills the retail area and both upper floors.

Mrs Winkley said: “It’s absolutely disgusting. It’s foul. It has a smell of its own.

“Last time we caught it in time – he didn’t manage to break it properly and I was able to get the stink bomb out. I chucked it in our bin outside.”

Whoever smelt it dealt it.

It’s hard to know what the Spalding Stink Bomber’s motive could possibly be. Perhaps he regards his campaign of olfactory vandalism as a legitimate form of direct political action in protest at the government’s overburdening of the charity sector as part of its ‘Big Society’ cuts agenda. That would be fair enough.

More cynically, I can’t help suspecting this whole thing has merely been cooked up by the charity shop staff in order to conceal their own unconscionable levels of flatulence.

Whoever denied it supplied it.

The attacks began last summer and, after a brief lull, they began again with a vengeance – often on Wednesdays.

Celia Laverton, manager of the air ambulance shop, said: “It’s happening at least once a week now.”

The stench lingers for around 45 minutes – and that’s after she’s opened the door, switched on fans, sprayed air fresheners and lit incense cones.

Mrs Winkley said her regular customers are now so used to the stink bomb attacks that they continue to shop – but others simply walk away after opening the front door.

PC Paul Smith, Spalding town centre beat manager, said he’s seen isolated incidents of youngsters letting off stink bombs in shops as a prank but in 22 years of policing has never come across a concerted campaign like this against charity shops.

He said: “If the gentleman has got a problem with the shops then I would say please bring it forward properly and stop picking on charity shops who are trying to collect money for charitable causes.”

If the police ever catch this stink-bombing scoundrel, then the most appropriate course of action would surely be to let him off. Boom boom, thank you, and goodnight.

Thanks to Paul Widdowfield for kicking up a stink and submitting this story.

A COUNCILLOR was suspended for a month yesterday after a tribunal ruled on an argument over who was first sitting in a chair.

Councillor Billy Blenkinsopp’s suspension marks the end of a 16- month row with Councillor Dorothy Bowman which he estimates has cost the taxpayer £50,000.

The pair, both members of Great Aycliffe Town Council, fell out when Coun Bowman sat down at a town council meeting on September 9, 2009.

While councillors do not have reserved seats they often sit in the same place, and Coun Blenkinsopp believed Coun Bowman was sitting in someone else’s chair.

The tribunal found that Coun Blenkinsopp told Coun Bowman to “p*** off” which he denied – claiming he told her to “get down her own end”.

Is that a euphemism? If so, I’m sure we can all agree such actions should have no place in a council chamber.

Turns out he’s a Lib Dem: hardly a surprise, given their recent behaviour in general. I wonder if this kind of thing is increasingly common around the Cabinet table in No. 10?

Yesterday’s tribunal was held after Coun Blenkinsopp, a former jockey who has served on various councils for 24 years, appealed against the three-month ban.

Coun Blenkinsopp told the tribunal that “tradition dictates” he, as deputy leader, should sit next to Bob Fleming, the then leader of the town council, as he had done that evening.

Coun Bowman said she had gone to sit in her usual place, next door but one to the leader, which she claimed prompted Coun Blenkinsopp’s four-letter out burst.

There’s something not quite right about describing a mere use of ‘piss’ as a “four-letter outburst”. Maybe if suspended Liberal Democrat Councillor Billy Blenkinsopp had gone for a ‘fuck’, a ‘twat’, a ‘cunt’ or a ‘COCK’, yes, but not just a ‘piss’, surely? Oh, and hello to those of you who are just joining us via Google.

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With public spending cuts beginning to bite, the Louth Leader continues its incredible freebie frenzy in a desperate bid to single-handedly salvage the Lincolnshire economy.

We’ve already seen them give away a free scone, some free butcher’s Lincolnshire sausages and a free jumbo sausage roll to each reader, but it hasn’t stopped there. Louth’s collective gluttony has continued unabated.

Mmmm! That FREE Cadbury chocolate bar was just the boost I needed after a hard day in the office. In fact, I must confess I now having something of a sweet tooth.

Oh yes, that delicious FREE mince pie well and truly hit the spot. And what a gorgeous red paper napkin thrown in for good measure.

I’m quite full now, I must say, so inevitably my thoughts are turning away from food and instead to how wonderful it would be if I had a well-populated charm bracelet to show off on my wrist while eating all of this stuff…

Oh, Louth Leader, you shouldn’t have… I adore it. Now I shall be the envy of all Louth.

Fuck it: I’m hungry again now, and frankly I could do with a cheap holiday as well.